Tales from the Uplands Read online

  He’d been well on his way when a man from the farm caught up with him. Ranaulf wondered if the wench had looked in his bags and pack during the night, telling her keepers how much coin Ranaulf carried. It had been a very good trading run, and salt fetched a higher price than usual this year. Rains in the south had interfered with salt making, or so one of the factors in Klagenfurt had told him. Ranaulf had sold the donkeys and two wagons and teams as well, leaving the teamsters to make their own way back to the Salzkammergut. He’d paid them enough that they should have no trouble, although they’d probably drunk and whored their earnings away already. It was not his problem. The wind above the trees hissed, and he smelled rain. Drops fell around him as the storm muttered against the peaks. He considered taking the trail up to the village on the slope across the stream, but the snarl of lightning warned him to stay in shelter.

  His cloak kept out the cold and rain better than his old one had. Ranaulf gave the dead man that—he’d known good materials. The boiled wool, well shrunken and lightly felted, shed water and kept out the wind. Of course, if the man had been honest, he would not have followed Ranaulf and certainly would not have claimed that Ranaulf had raped his niece. And if he’d had any sense at all, he’d have known that a merchant never travelled unarmed or unable to defend himself. But no, the fool had thought he could chase down his former guest and demand more money from him. Ranaulf had told the man to go home and that he’d already paid the doxie, but the fool had grabbed Ranaulf’s pack, as if trying to drag him back to the farm or to steal Ranaulf’s hard-bargained money.

  He hadn’t intended to kill the fool, just ward him off. Ranaulf shrugged, watching the rain trickling off the tips of the pine branches in front of his shelter. It had been God’s will. Ranaulf had raised his staff, turning and ducking to get away from the farmer. But the man had tried again. Ranaulf had tapped him lightly on the head, just enough to make him see stars. Instead the damn fool dropped like a stunned ox. Well, he’d probably been as smart as one, despite his good taste in cloaks. Ranaulf had taken the cloak after dragging the body away from the trail. There was no point in attracting scavengers like wolves and bears to the trade path, after all.

  Still, the man’s words bothered Ranaulf a little. If the girl claimed rape, then he’d better hurry. Which was why he’d passed up several towns and inns, staying in the forests or away from the main trailside inns and church-run shelters. Until this afternoon, the weather favored him, another sign that he’d not done anything wrong. Ranaulf had left a few coins at St. Florian’s in Größchalk after he crossed the pass, thanking St. Christopher for bringing him safely through the mountains. A few more days and he’d be home and safe, where people knew him. Ranaulf had no doubts that if someone from the family was following him, once he crossed into the Sazlkammergut, they’d turn back. Everyone knew Ranaulf Silbermann and the bailiffs would not permit mere farmers to harass him, especially with claims as unfounded as rape. The thunder, now muted with distance, seemed to agree with his decision.

  The sky and valley fell quiet. Ranaulf heaved his pack back onto his shoulders, picked up his staff from where he’d leaned it against one of the pines, and ventured out. Water dripped from the branches and leaves but the rain seemed to have stopped. The sky remained dark and he glanced up to see heavy clouds lingering around the top of the mountain. The valley seemed to have come by its name honestly, he thought: Donnersbach, Donnertal, Grimmig, all thunder names. Ranaulf returned to the trail. The stream hissed and snarled, brown with soil from the fields upstream. He decided to take a small branch of the track, higher up the slope and away from the spate of water.

  As Ranaulf made his way around the base of the dark mountain, he grew uneasy. The sense of being watched returned, although he could not see anyone. He’d passed from the wooded area into a long clearing and rocky stretch, and any man looking down on him from the mountain or the ridge across the stream should have been easy to spot. Ranaulf shook his head and walked on, mindful of the mud and slippery patches. Once he crossed the next ridge to the north, he’d be in his own lands and within a week of home.

  A flashing crack struck the center of the mountain’s black face. Thunder boomed, echoing, each roll louder than the last. Ranaulf ducked. He heard another crack, and turned, peering to the left at the steep slope. It turned pale, churning like the stream, swirling and rumbling down at him. “No!” he tried to shield himself, to run, but the cascade of rock hurtled down on him, grinding, crushing, burying the traveller under thousands of tons of living rock.

  Sunlight shone down on the soft dust fog. A shepherd on the neighboring ridge ventured to look down into the valley. The slide had missed the stream, thanks be to the Lord, he thought, crossing himself and returning to watching his sheep. Someone else would have to clear the trail.

  A Traveller Passing Through

  Bettina peered around the edge of the door and saw a stranger. The man wore a pilgrim’s badges and carried a staff. “Your pardon,” he said, or Bettina thought he said. He spoke with a very strange accent. “Your pardon, but is your man here?”

  Christof, her husband, rested one hand on her shoulder and Bettina ducked out of the way. She returned to the bread dough on the stove, and to trying to feed little Christof. The boy fretted, his new teeth making him fussy. His older brother and sisters gave her curious looks from around the room. “You have work to be doing,” she reminded them. Liza ducked her head and the other children went back to knitting, or sorting eggs, or rolling the butter barrel. The cow had just started giving milk again, and they needed to pay the church’s share before they began storing everything they could against the fall and winter’s dearth. Bettina crossed herself as she finished piling the bread dough onto the wooden pan. She cut a cross on it and whispered a prayer to St. Ann and Jesus, then pushed the loaf into the oven. Christof had made an oven in the fireplace, the only house-oven in the village, and she put it to use whenever she could.

  Her husband returned and sat back down at the table, picked up the piece of wood he’d been smoothing and returned to his task. Bettina wondered what had happened, but she stayed quiet. Christof had been angry all day because the miller had blamed him for damage to the water troughs that guided water to the mill. Bettina knew that Christof had warned Hans about the troughs needing stronger legs where they crossed the stream, but Hans had not wanted to pay for the wood or the work. Now he refused to admit that he’d been wrong. Men, Bettina sighed to herself.

  Christof finished the spoon he’d carved. He stood, put on his hat and clogs, and left without speaking. After ten years of marriage she’d grown used to his ways and Bettina went back to sewing while she had sun. She needed to repair her winter skirt, and to finish making a shirt for little Christof. He’d started growing at last, thanks be, but he’d have nothing to wear but what the Holy Lord gave Adam if she did not get the fabric sewn. She didn’t mind, since all the other children went without clothes in summer, but her husband refused to let even the baby go out without at least a shirt; it made him look poor, Christof said. Bettina wondered if Fr. Martin would give her man another lecture about his pride, then heard the churn stop. “The butter’s not set yet, keep rolling.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  Her man returned just before dark. “The stranger needs eggs. Eggs and some of that oil I brought back from downriver.”

  “Does he need them cooked?” She moved the baby to her other breast, nodding at Liza to move the porridge bowl to the table for Christof and Josef to eat from. She and the children would take what they left. They really didn’t have many eggs to spare, but strangers did need to be cared for.

  “No. He uses them to bind the colors to the wall. He’s a painter, on pilgrimage from Regensburg, and agreed to paint the new chapel.” Christof blessed the food and ate. Josef, their oldest, watched his father, and once Christof slowed his bites, the boy scooped a little of the bean and onion pottage into a bowl and ate as well. “He went almost as far as Rome.”
/>   Bettina stared at Christof, slack jawed. The stranger had been to Rome? Where the Holy Father was? She’d never been farther down the valley than Trautenfels, where the lord had his castle and collected the river tolls from merchants and held a market twice a year. Then she thought about the rest of what he’d said. “What did Fr. Martin say?”

  Christof shrugged. “It’s a chapel, not the church, so we can do as we wish. Brother Anselm won’t be coming back, no matter what the priests at the end of the valley say, and we need it painted. The Lord sent a painter.” That was the end of that.

  Bettina nodded and wondered what Rome had looked like. Was it like the description of Heaven that Fr. Paul had read to them, with streets of gold and glowing rocks so you never needed candles and sweet water that never made your clothes dirtier?

  A month after he arrived in the little hamlet of Prügg, Georg Hieronymus Richter set his paints down. He stretched a little, blinked, and stepped back from the wall, mindful of the water bucket and plaster pan by his feet. He’d reached a good point to stop and let his eyes rest, and to pray before beginning the next section. The painters in Italy had assistants to do the simple work, to mix the base plaster and spread it, and to fill in the large areas. But he was not in Italy.

  Georg walked out of the oblong chapel building and blinked in the bright sunlight. Someone had mown the meadow around the chapel and raked it, and now mounds of fresh-cut hay dotted the little alp. To the north and west, mountains reared up, the dark wall of Grimmig looming over the valley. South, the land dropped away to the village into the Enns River valley below. He could just see the castle on the river, and more mountains blocked the way south. He’d come that way, up the river, on his way back from Ravenna. He’d planned to stay east, in the lower country toward Graz, but the Babenburgs and the lords of Bavaria seemed to be at war, and the Hungarians were moving again. Rumors spoke of troubles even farther east, stirring up the country north of Byzantium. So he’d come west, wondering what to do. And God had sent a sign.

  Storms upstream and a rockslide had forced him to stop at the village. Once here he’d spent the night with a farmer who kept a space for travellers. Several men had come by to drink beer and to learn the news. “You say you can paint?” One of them, Christof, had asked.

  “Yes. Images and wall paintings as well.”

  A quiet, fast discussion in the local dialect followed, and Florian Bauer, the unofficial head of the village, had said, “We need a chapel painted. The one up at the end of the village, in the alp. We’ll pay you room, board, and five silver shillings.”

  Georg had considered the offer. “I need to look at it, tomorrow. And I will need to get colors and plaster.”

  “The new monastery has those, the lord of Trautenfels too,” Florian had assured him.

  That night Georg dreamed of a finished chapel, a painted version of the glorious mosaics of Ravenna. He could see exactly what went where on the walls, and the curtain along the lower part of the wall, and the battle of good and evil opposite the struggle of Caine and Able by the door, and angels looking down on the altar. When the men opened the building for him the next day, Georg knew in a heartbeat that this was what he was meant to do, why the Lord had used the wars to the east and a rock fall to guide him to this village. He crossed himself. “I will do it.”

  The villagers wanted the Annunciation and Nativity, and the Last Supper. Besides those he could work as the Lord guided him, although several women hinted that they’d like St. Mary Magdalene, especially if she looked like the daughter of Count Trautenfels. Georg kept his peace and worked on the Annunciation and Last Supper, praying and fasting. He’d also finished the angels around the altar space, at last. The curve of the ceiling made it difficult, and the plaster seemed to dry as fast as he climbed the ladder up to the top of the arch. But the weather had not turned hot and dusty yet, allowing him time to work before the surface dried too much, thanks be. That might be changing, though.

  Georg squinted, looking up. The sky seemed a darker blue, less cloudy. The summer rains had not fallen since Sunday. And the days would soon begin to grow shorter, once the feast of St. John the Baptist passed. Half the walls of the main chapel remained to be painted. He remembered his vision that first night and bowed his head, then returned to work.

  The heat began building as Georg started work on the section on the southwest wall, about the war of good and evil. The priests would probably mutter, but Georg’s dream had shown the image so vividly that he had no choice: it was the will of the Lord. The creeping dryness convinced him even more. Obviously the devil was trying to keep him from finishing, and Georg set about trying to outwit the evil one. He began working earlier, during the dew-damp mornings even before sunrise, his nose almost touching the wet plaster on the wall so he could see. Georg spread smaller areas of wet plaster, working quickly to sketch the design of the figures, then color them with more damp plaster and paint. Frescoes took time, but the colors sang and all the Italian masters were using frescoes. The new church for Francis of Assisi would be pure frescoes or so a visiting priest had said when he was in Ravenna.

  He painted a citadel, like ones he’d seen along the Drava and in Italy. Mice kept watch from the walls and fought the cats gathering outside the fort. Virtue and holiness protecting the soul from sin, Georg meditated and prayed as he painted, working steadily, perched on a ladder now as he finished the top of the castle. He’d already finished the ceiling, painting the wooden beams with flowers and stars and blue for the cloak of the Queen of Heaven. He added the final touch to the top, a little more red on the banner, and started climbing down the ladder.

  Creeaak crack! The rung gave way under his foot. Georg lost his balance and fell onto the stone floor. “No!” He landed on the edge of the water bucket. He felt the wood give under his arm, and sharp pain raced through his right arm between the shoulder and elbow. The ladder clattered down on top of him, then rolled off to the side. Georg lay on his back, panting, seeing stars. He tried to move his arm and it hurt terribly. But he could move his fingers, thanks be to the Lord and Our Lady.

  The next day he knew that he’d broken his arm. “Obviously Satan’s work,” Georg growled. He’d managed to finish the battle scene, though, and the devil himself would not keep Georg from completing the chapel, if it were God’s will. He added prayers to St. Michael and St. George, the defenders against the forces of evil, and St. Margaret and St. Luke, as well as St. John, to whom the chapel belonged. All that remained were the paintings on the southwest wall by the door, the images of Cain and Able.

  Georg swallowed his pride and hired one of the young men in the village to help him. The farmers didn’t need as much labor for the moment, and the young man was one of God’s simple souls, capable of doing easy, uncomplicated tasks but not much more. Georg had the boy move the ladder and carry water, mix the plain plaster, and carry or hold things. Georg worked with his left hand as much as he could, then supported his right arm with the left for the fine work, his eyes tearing up from the pain. Even so, as the days grew hotter and stayed dry, Georg had to race to finish each section before it dried. If God willed it, he’d finish, with the help of St. Michael and the others.

  At last, just before harvest, after three days of painting until he could barely see, fasting and praying, Georg finished the last of the frescoes. His arm no longer hurt and the herb wife proclaimed it a miracle. Georg and the boy cleaned up the plaster and tools, and Georg sent the boy to fetch Florian Bauer and the other sponsors of the chapel.

  From the door, facing east, Cain and Able presented their offerings to the Lord. Then Cain slew his brother and fled, marked forever with the signs of God’s wrath and protection. Farther east, toward the altar, the Lord Jesus presided over the table, blessing the cup as John rested against His shoulder and Judas scowled, looking at Cain beside him. A beautiful curtain, like the ones that stretched across the churches and castles in Italy, covered the lower part of the picture, hiding Christ’s legs fro
m view. Four angels and the Evangelists looked down on the altar from a half-circle niche. Then, on the south wall, Gabriel recited his message to Mary. She gave birth to the Lord, who in turn blessed her and his cousin John the Baptist. Then came the battle for the souls of men, good mice defending against evil cats.

  “God be praised!” Florian Bauer gasped, crossing himself and bowing to the figures as he came in the door. Georg had painted the saints as he’d seen in Ravenna and in his vision, using the style of the Byzantine artists. “Truly the Lord was with you.”

  Christof poked his head in next, then looked around and entered the main length of the chapel. “Hmm, no St. Mary Magdalene. Too bad.” He peered at Able, squinting a little, his nose almost touching the plaster, then backed up. “But fitting for our Lord and St. John,” he allowed.

  Two days later Georg continued on his way under fair skies. The air felt a touch damp, as if the fall rains might be starting, and he hurried north, to the pass to the Salzburg and then the Danube and home. The villagers had paid him his fee and sent him on with journey food and blessings.

  Fr. Martin blessed the chapel when he visited for the next feast day. “Cain and Able? That is not appropriate for a church,” the square-faced priest complained.

  “The Lord sent a vision and this is our chapel,” Bauer reminded him. Schwarz, the smith, nodded and folded his arms, sleeves bulging.

  “Well, it is a chapel,” the priest decided at last, still unhappy. He blessed the building and consecrated it for the village. He preferred the proper church, St. George, down in the town. The Abbot of Admont would not be pleased either, although the monks had not sent the painter as they had agreed, so perhaps they would not blame him for the farmers’ choice. The Lord certainly had large eyes, Fr. Martin noted. They seemed to follow him, as did the gaze of the Virgin. He crossed himself, extinguished the rush tapers and hurried out.